


Five Minutes to Breathe

by darksquall



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020), Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: 5+1 Things, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-19 00:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29498583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darksquall/pseuds/darksquall
Summary: Cloud Strife makes a delivery and gets a free materia. Its a little different to ones he's had before.Five times Cloud Strife called on the new summon materia he acquired, and the one time he didn't.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	Five Minutes to Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> I'm kind of drawing a bit from both oldschool ff7 and remake here, combining the worlds and taking the bits I like. Set a year or two after Advent Children. Forgive any inconsistencies as I'm only just replaying the oldschool FF7 - it's been a hot minute - and I'm making a lot of stuff up as I go along.
> 
> For MermaidJeans - belated happy birthday.

“You use materia,” the shopkeeper had said. 

It was stating the obvious. Cloud always had his blade strapped to his back while he made deliveries off the bike, and the glitter of several materia across the silver-grey metal was pretty evident over his shoulder. Cloud had given him the briefest nod, preferring not to discuss such matters, particularly when he hadn’t yet been _paid_ , since some of his delivery routes had a habit of trying to barter for payment at the last second despite the contract terms they’d already agreed to. He carefully didn’t react when the shopkeeper set a red sphere of materia on the countertop at arms length and pulled his hand away as though he’d been burnt just by handling it. 

“Do you want this one?”

“It’s a summon materia,” Cloud had said, raising an eyebrow. Summon materia was still fairly rare, but there was little to no market for it. It wasn’t useful in the way say, fire materia was, and it was generally difficult for amateurs to use.

He was curious, of course. The shopkeeper had told him the usual things that sounded like bullshit - no one could summon it, no one knew what it could do, everything he expected to hear when it came to someone spinning a tale. The shopkeeper had really seemed relieved when he’d actually picked up the sphere and pocketed it, which gave Cloud a little more reassurance that the tale was true. 

He only pocketed it _after_ he’d gotten the gil for the job sorted out, of course. Cloud wasn’t a fool.

He didn’t really take his time to examine the materia itself until the early evening. Taking a break from the road, still a little ways from home, he’d pulled off his glove and examined the red sphere of powerful magic carefully. 

When he held a materia, especially a summon materia, he could feel the power inside it. Ifrit felt hot. Not burning hot, but a pleasant warmth against the fingers, like a cup of coffee held in both palms on a chilled morning. He felt eager, almost hungry to be summoned, pawing the ground in impatience as he waited to be unleashed upon his prey. Shiva felt cold, of course, and eerily quiet. Like a street abandoned in a heavy fall of snow. She felt patient and deadly and - should you hold her materia in your hand for long enough - you could almost hear the occasional musical crack. Like an icicle breaking and tumbling into nothingness. 

This new materia felt like… absolutely nothing. He’d taken off the glove because he could hardly believe that it felt like nothing, there had to be something there, some sensation that would give him an idea of what, or rather _whom_ was trapped inside it. He had been wrong, however. The materia was silent. An aching, lonely silence that seemed to stretch out forever. 

The weird thing about it was, the longer he held it, the more he had the sense that someone was standing just behind him, glaring at him. 

Suddenly the shopkeeper’s reaction when he’d put it down made sense. If he’d not had much experience of summon materia, the sensation would almost feel ghostly.

Cloud debated just tossing it by the wayside. He had little need for summon materia any more, and his curiosity had waned somewhat at the eerie feeling, but something about that lonely silence spoke to him. There was an odd familiarity in it that he found strangely comforting, as though whatever being had a portion of themselves trapped inside that orb was like him somehow. As though someone, or something else knew his loneliness. 

Pulling the main blade of his fusion sword out of one of the storage pod on his bike, Cloud set about removing one of the materia from it’s slots carefully, stowing it away in one of his saddlebags. Before he set the new orb in its place however, he eyed it one last time. “If I’m going to carry you, I should at least get a name,” he said.

All in a rush it happened. His nostrils filled with the smell of gun oil, gunpowder and leather. The heat of battle, adrenaline and a cold, bone deep rage. The presence behind him seemed closer than ever and he swore he heard a whisper at his ear, a male voice whispering a name in hushed tones. Just as Cloud grabbed the hilt of his weapon to defend himself from that menacing presence, it was gone again, and the materia was back to silence. 

He swallowed thickly and took a moment to steady his nerves. He silently slid the materia into its waiting slot and sheathed the weapon again. 

He could have sworn the voice said _Griever._

*******

Cloud had realised almost immediately that what the shopkeeper had said was at least partly correct. He _couldn’t_ summon Griever, if that was indeed the name of the creature inside the materia. At least, he couldn’t at _first._ He’d dealt with materia before that had seemed to be completely useless until it had been with him long enough to grow more powerful, though, so he bided his time. He had patience. 

It wasn’t entirely like the old days - monsters were mostly kept out of Edge itself at least, not nearly as close to home as they’d been in the slums of Midgar, so he had little need to fight when back home most of the time. However, out on what little roads stretched between the inhabited points of the world, there were always darker things waiting to snatch up an unwary traveller. Always something or someone ready to try and get the jump on him. It was part of the reason he did what he did - there was good money in playing courier when almost nothing out on the roads could touch you. 

Others, sadly, weren’t so skilled, nor so lucky. 

The first time he felt the summon acknowledge him it had been a grey, dreary day. He was a little ways east of Junon, carrying a couple of packages of tools vital to a mining camp that had reopened part of the old Mythril Mine. The air had felt heavy with the promise of a storm for a good twenty miles before he saw the first flash of lightning illuminating the road way before him. 

When it lit up the sky, he saw a vehicle in the ditch beside the road ahead and a dozen or so nerosuferoths scattered both around and on top of it. A familiar green light whispering out of the broken windows told him it was probably already too late for whoever had been inside, either the crash or the creatures themselves had killed them.

And then the heavens opened.

It began to rain hard and fast, the water quickly swamping the old road. The beam of his headlight swept through the dullness as he pulled up to a stop, reflecting in the glitter of the nerosuferoth’s eyes as they turned to regard the new threat. Mako blue eyes, like SOLDIERs - almost every damn monster had been exposed at some time to the threat of ShinRa’s reactors even if they were all now long silent, slowly rotting remnants of the not so distant past.

Cloud turned off the bike, the engine already ticking as it began to cool in the rain dampened air. The creatures held little challenge for him, really, except for perhaps their number, but if they were attacking vehicles, they were a potential threat not only to him but all other travellers in the locale. They had to be dealt with. 

He pulled the main blade of his sword from the storage pod on the bike and started towards them cautiously.

Then… he felt a hand on his shoulder. No one was there, physically, but he could feel the weight of it, the warmth of a stranger’s hand right on his skin as though he weren’t wearing a heavy pauldron on the very same shoulder. Bracing himself in a ready position before the creatures, Cloud reached into the ether mentally and found the Griever materia glowing a dark, blood soaked red. 

It was curiosity more than anything that had him call for the creature. Why now? Why this battle? He suspected he would never know for sure, but he wanted to finally see the mysterious summon creature in action.

The air grew colder. It wasn’t the same cold as Shiva, nothing quite so stark or dramatic. No, this was the cold loneliness that he remembered from when he’d first handled the materia. From the way the nerosuferoths closest to him shied back a few steps, he suspected that they felt it too. That same sense of someone unseen watching, someone unseen glowering was almost overwhelming. 

Another flash of lightning, brighter and closer than before, the rumble of thunder almost concurrent with the light - and then there was a creature before him. A lion, with a shockingly white mane and fur a deep purple-black. From the mane, crimson horns stretched in jagged arcs backwards and on its back were folded heavy, white feathered wings. 

Cloud simply watched as the lion threw back it’s head and roared… and gathered its strength for the attack. A light streaked through the heavy clouds, searing white hot into the ground between the summon creature and the monsters. Cloud lifted a hand to shield his eyes as it somehow grew _brighter_ \- and then exploded outwards with a rush of deafening energy.

The protection of holding the summoning materia meant that he felt the shockwave of energy hit him, making him gasp for breath, even if it did him no harm. 

It obliterated the nerosuferoths, far too easily. 

The light faded slowly, and sound returned to the world. The patter of raindrops all around him. The soft rumble of thunder, as the storm overhead moved swiftly onwards. The same soft ticking of the bike’s engine cooling in the rain dampened air of a dreary afternoon. Familiar, welcome sounds that grounded him again as the summon magic started to fade. 

Slowly, the lion turned to face him, watching him patiently with silver-blue, slit pupiled eyes. Summon creatures had vaguely recognised him before, but this somehow felt… different. With Shiva and Ifrit and the others, he felt like he was looking up to them. With Griever… he felt like they were on almost equal footing. It was an eerie feeling. It didn’t feel _right_ somehow, to feel like that about something that was so far beyond him. 

Cloud lowered his blade and the summon faded away like smoke on the wind, leaving Cloud alone in the rain again.

Strafing his gaze across the meagre battlefield, he shifted his grip and the weight of his blade to let him brush his thumb lightly against the summon materia. It still felt the same, that cold and lonely emptiness that had accompanied the materia from the first time he’d held it in his ungloved hands but this time, he felt as though the glare was no longer aimed at him. As though it were aimed past him, at whatever he had to face. He couldn’t explain in the least how he knew these things, he just… understood it on some visceral level. 

Griever seemed to have accepted him, for now at least. 

Still wary of the soft quiet of the day, Cloud set his blade into the sheath on his back, and went to check the van in the ditch.

*******

The next time Griever reached for him, Cloud was facing a far tougher foe. 

The Gold Saucer lived on beyond meteor in all of it’s ardent glory. New attractions, new games filled the spaces within it’s golden walls, but some old favourites naturally still lingered. The battle square still drew both competitors and spectators in spades - just as it always had and likely always would. Ever stronger foes were required for both entertainment and challenge and Dio was naturally only too happy to provide.

Once in a while though, one of the monsters deliberately bred for the Battle Square would prove too powerful for it’s handlers and escape into the desert. If they were lucky, it would roam lost in the sinking sands. If not, it might find it’s way to the plains that surrounded the desert, and potentially one of the small settlements in the area. 

Cloud tried to stick to the edges of the desert as much as possible when passing through, aware of just how much damage the dust and heat could do to his bike, not to mention the quicksand that surrounded the base of the Gold Saucer itself. Besides, the Southern Corel desert was a vast, undulating plain of nothingness for the most part. It was far too easy to get turned around in the dust and to get lost - something he very much preferred to avoid. 

Memories of Ruby Weapon towering against a bright blue sky, it’s carapace glistening in the sun didn’t exactly encourage him to cross either - even if it was long since dead and returned to the depths of the shifting desert sands. 

Some things, you just couldn’t shake. 

It was a Harpy, this time. He’d faced them before - of course he had, he wasn’t sure there were any surprises left in the world when it came to the monsters that roamed it above and below the earth - but this one was stronger, quicker than the ones he’d faced before. The poison storm spell it had cast hit him _hard_ even if the lasting effects washed away in a heartbeat. The Ribbon he still wore tied around his arm put pay to anything that might have harmed him further, thanks to the protection charm it offered. 

The heat of the sun beating down incessantly and the way the ground shifted under his feet slowed him in his counter attacks. He tried to force it back, tried to find space between them to catch his breath but it seemed like it was all for nothing. The snake tail of the creature snapped at him constantly, venom dripping from its fangs as he tried to hold the creature at bay.

Cloud struggled to gain control of the fight, throwing everything he had behind every swing of his sword, until it bit deep into the Harpy’s foreleg, red blood spurting out across the width of his blade. 

The Harpy faltered for just a moment, recoiling as its three heads bellowed in pain. A heartbeat or two. Cloud threw himself backwards, finding just a few feet of space to cast regen on himself without having to defend against another attack.

Then that familiar hand on his shoulder caught his attention. Griever. 

“Okay,” he half growled out, bracing his sword and reaching through the ether again. Griever’s materia shone as cold and as bright as winter sun. “Finish it.”

Griever did. 

It was just like before. An odd cold sweeping across the desert, offering some brief merciful relief from the oppressive heat of the sun. There was no lightning this time though, no rain to herald the arrival of the winged lion in the desert. Instead, Cloud simply blinked and the Lion was just there, as though he always had been, as though he belonged there in the baking sun. 

Cloud threw an arm up to cover his eyes, bracing himself as the bright light streaked down from the sky all over again, just as it had when facing the nerosuferoths. Burning white hot light, eradicating everything in its path and burning the sand to glass, the shockwave echoing out across the empty dunes. Griever’s attack vapourized the Harpy on the spot. 

The silence after the attack struck him, just as it had the first time but this time it felt a little easier to place. 

For a moment, it felt as though there was nothing else besides the two of them in the entire world. 

Just as before, Griever turned slowly to watch him. It felt just as strange as it had the first time Cloud had met the lion eye to eye - he still couldn’t explain the eerie feeling he got when he looked at the summon. He couldn’t explain how he knew that this one was different to the ones he’d summoned before, even beyond the fact that it actively acknowledged him in those moments after it’s attack.

He met the creature’s gaze steadily waiting for it to disappear like it had before.

Instead, it stayed. 

Cloud looked around, worried there might be another monster, another foe that Griever was waiting for, but he saw nothing. He almost jumped out of his skin when, as his attention was diverted elsewhere, the lion butted him with his head. Even though it was gentle for such a large creature, it still forced Cloud half a step in the direction of his bike. 

No summon creature had ever actually touched him before. 

“Are…,” Cloud cleared his throat, bone dry in the desert sun. “Are you telling me to go back to the bike?”

The Lion gave a _very_ definite nod. 

Cloud stared at the creature for a moment longer, before he nodded, and turned to head back to the bike. Again, he thought that now the Lion would fade away, disappearing into smoke as it had in that thunderstorm on a rain slicked road outside of Junon. Instead, as he reached the bike, the lion settled down beside it and stretched one of its wings out - covering both Cloud and the bike in merciful shade. 

Thankful for the brief reprieve from the oppressive sunlight, Cloud took a moment to quickly clean off his blade and find his water bottle. The regen spell lingered on, closing his wounds and offering him some comfort from the exertion of the fight, at least. Bruises were harder to manage with a spell, but at least it would make moving a little easier until it wore off and generally shorten the recovery time for them.

The lion seemed to be keeping guard, keeping a watch over the heat haze of the desert, never even once turning back to look at Cloud. He felt oddly disappointed at that, but it gave him a chance to examine the creature more closely. The sleek fur stretched over powerful muscles, the thick wings that offered him shelter for a moment, Griever was chilling but beautiful. It reminded him more of the griffons he’d fought across the years, their powerful muscles and huge wings. He wanted to touch the lion, to see how Griever felt under his fingertips, but he didn’t dare actually attempt it.

The white feathers weren’t as white as he’d first thought, he noticed. Instead, they were threaded with silver and grey. Never enough colour in one place to take away from the shock of white against the stark purple-black of the lion’s fur but it was definitely there. The lion’s tail flicked back and forth restlessly and he noticed that rather than a swell of fur, it ended in metal barbs. 

In some worrying ways, Griever reminded him of things he’d seen when he’d first worked with Zack.

“I should go,” Cloud offered hesitantly when the regen had faded and his thirst had been quenched. “Need to make a delivery.”

Griever’s head turned slowly, regarding him with those odd silver-blue eyes. It stayed silent, tail still flicking back and forth but that was the only movement he could detect - the lion didn’t even seem to be breathing. 

Then again, if it was a summon, did it even have to breathe? Was it _alive?_

Cloud met the lion’s gaze readily. Nothing had changed since the last time he’d summoned Griever. He still felt that odd sensation of being equals - almost as though there was an air of familiarity there. He just couldn’t put his finger on why he felt it, and as long as the creature stayed silent, he thought he never would. A small smile tugged at one corner of Cloud’s mouth. “I’m glad you stopped glaring at me,” he offered softly. 

Griever rose to his feet and stretched, huge clawed paws dragging tracks through the sand. It’s wings spread wide, beating once with enough force to almost take Cloud’s breath away before they folded down against the lion’s back once more. 

The lion turned and headbutted him again, even more gently than he had before, and simply melted away into smoke that was lost on the wind again. Only this time, Cloud swore he could hear a purr from within the Griever materia. 

*******

The next time Griever reached for him, he was again travelling for a delivery, there was no surprise there. A blue dragon had started building a nest in the cliffs beside a commonly used route that led to Icicle Village. 

Unfortunately, it had also started attacking the few travellers that went to the fairly remote area.

It was a breathlessly cold morning despite the heavy cloud cover threatening another snow fall. He’d spent the night near the bone village rather than risk the ice fields in the rapidly fading light after he’d arrived there. Nights on the northern continent were long, dark and bitterly cold. Cloud wasn’t fool enough to push the bike against all the odds stacked against him, especially not when the pay offered him no bonuses for a swift arrival to encourage the extra risk. 

Besides, by starting out in the morning, he’d been able to join a couple of other vehicles that planned to forge the path through the snow to the village, letting the larger, more substantial vehicles clear the way for his bike where he could. If pressed, he could handle it of course, but he knew it would be slow going, and tough on the bike in general. He didn’t verbally often offer protection to other travellers, but the adverse weather encouraged cooperation between them all.

Cloud heard the cry of the blue dragon before he saw it. 

He hit the brakes, casting a hurried glance around to locate the creature before it could attack, spotting it up on the cliff face, wings already stretched ready to perform it’s great gale attack. With a curse muttered under his breath he pulled his fusion sword - already assembled to avoid having to work against the metal’s contraction in the cold - from it’s storage pod, burying it into the ground beside him, hanging on with both hands and bracing the bike. The bike was heavy enough that he wouldn’t be worried usually, but the snow was an unknown factor. 

The forceful winds of the attack picked up and stirred the freshly fallen snow as they travelled, flinging it at the meagre convoy. Cloud ducked his head down behind his blade as much as he could through the length of the spell, thankful for the goggles he wore to protect his eyes.

He found he’d been right to dig the sword in when he lifted his head again - it had helped to block the snow from reaching his engine at least.

Cloud looked over the others of the procession he’d been in - a sturdy little truck with studded tires and a makeshift covering over what once had been an open bed, and a small van with caterpillar tracks. The van had fared better than the truck, though it was partly swamped in snow, the truck had slid sideways in an attempt to stop before the attack could hit - the covering, half hammered together boards and heavy tarpaulin had been partly torn away, revealing the inhabitants. 

Kids. There were kids onboard. What looked at first glance like a teenager and two much younger children, wrapped up against the cold of the day. The teenager was huddled over the two smaller kids, protecting them. Cloud hauled his sword out of the ground swinging himself off the bike and rushing as quickly as he could into the path between the dragon and the procession, bracing himself in ready position. He may not have offered to protect them before they’d started out, but he couldn’t let the kids get hurt.

Of course the dragon was too high for him to reach with his blade, but he could protect himself and the convoy if the dragon swooped down. 

Shifting his grip enough to take the weight of the blade in one hand, Cloud pulled the magic from one of the mastered fire materia he had slotted. The heat of the spell gathered across his gloved fingers harmlessly, but appreciated in the bitter cold, and Cloud threw the spell hard. 

The dragon screeched as the fire blistered across it’s scales. The huge leathery wings flapped again as it prepared to dive down and attack Cloud - or worse, the convoy - and then he felt it again. 

Griever right behind him, a warm hand on his shoulder. That presence glaring at his target, angrier than ever. 

A winged creature to fight a winged creature.

Cloud reached for the materia, feeling the dark bubbling anger of it as he found Griever waiting, as he summoned Griever into battle again. 

A gust of wind stirred the powdery snow as - instead of appearing between blinks or in a flash of lightning, Griever swooped down from out of the velvet-grey clouds that had been threatening more snow since Cloud had woken that morning. This time, it was different. 

He’d seen summons with multiple forms before, Choco and Mog had occasionally allowed a different Chocobo to attack in their stead after all, but he was a little surprised. Griever still looked the same, generally - the same purple-black fur, the same huge white wings and curving crimson horns adorning it’s head - but this time, his figure was humanoid. His arms and legs almost seemed too long to be real, as though the lion had simply stood up somehow, and now there were great blades curling back from just below his elbow joints. 

The dragon dove, and Griever met it readily, claws biting into its scaled hide and using its momentum to force it to fly further. The two creatures flew over the convoy, Griever pinning the dragon to the snow far on the other side of their vehicles with one huge hand. 

Then, to Cloud’s surprise, Griever half turned and gestured at them to keep moving. 

Cloud yelled for the drivers to get moving, to just go, but the snow had swamped the studded wheels and cut off the air intake for the truck’s engine, making it sputter and die. The van at least seemed to know how to work itself free, rolling forward and back until it broke out of the drift that had half covered it. He cursed again under his breath until the teenager clambered out the back with a shovel in hand to start clearing snow away to free the vehicle.

Shielded and almost intangible as he was under the protection of the summon materia while Griever was present, there was nothing he could do to help the convoy physically while Griever remained.

The two smaller children peered out nervously at the fight between the two monsters. 

It struck Cloud suddenly that Griever hadn’t cast his main attack, the shockwave pulsar immediately on being summoned. Instead, he’d taken the dragon on and was attempting to push it away from the convoy. Was Griever afraid of damaging the vehicles? It would make sense. The protection afforded to himself by the Summon materia being slotted would not extend to the others after all, but Cloud was surprised that Griever would think of it.

Griever roared, a deep, angry cry that echoed along the cliffs and over the open snow fields. He redoubled his efforts and pushed the blue dragon back again, further away from the convoy yet again and just as the truck’s engine finally turned over and burbled into life, jumping into motion, he cast the shockwave pulsar.

The light streaked down from the heavy clouds, burning away the blue dragon and the snow in a wide radius alike. 

Even at a distance, the shockwave was still enough to stir the snow again - though thankfully not quite enough to swamp any of the vehicles a second time. 

Cloud trudged through the snow to meet Griever as he returned. The lion walked through the snow as though it were nothing of course, despite the deep drifts that stretched out over the ice fields either side of the makeshift roadway forged by humans that made the journey to and from the icicle village. The lion was injured, though, Cloud noted, bearing a bleeding bite mark on one of its arms - minor in the grand scheme of things really but still something of a concern. Another oddity for a Summon monster. 

As Griever drew closer to both Cloud and the convoy, the two small children in the back of the truck screamed. Shrill, fearful screams at the sight of the monster.

Griever’s head snapped up, gaze locked on them and before Cloud could say a word to stop him or to reassure the children, he’d already faded to mist and disappeared on the breeze. In the moments after the screams, the world seemed so empty again, without the creature there.

Cloud found himself disappointed at the loss of another chance to interact with the summon, especially since it reached for him so rarely. 

Cloud returned to the convoy, and after a moment to reassure the other drivers and check the vehicles for damage, continued with it to Icicle Inn. His delivery was received gratefully and he was of course, paid rather handsomely for the work. 

The skies had cleared somewhat while he’d been at the village, and after grabbing lunch and checking around for any other potential leads for work, he’d decided to make his way back before another snowstorm could cover their tracks completely. It was much easier going on the return journey, and even though the wind had stirred a little snow back into the long tread tracks of the vehicles, it was just a thin covering and Cloud could easily pick his way back towards Bone Village. 

So easy, infact, that he’d stopped part way to summon Shiva. 

In part he’d done it because out on the ice fields she seemed to be happier than anywhere else he’d ever summoned her. He had no target, no real need for her aid, but he wasn’t in a rush to return - he already knew exactly when the next boat would be returning from the continent back to the port outside Edge and he had plenty of time - and he could just let her stretch her legs a little. Perhaps his experience with Griever had helped him to think of the summon materia as more than just a particularly powerful means to an end in battle.

He was very surprised, when he felt Griever’s hand on his shoulder again so soon after he’d been summoned. Cloud even heard the softest whisper of _“please,”_ in that same seemingly male voice that had whispered the summon creature’s name to him all those months before when he’d held the materia in his bare hand. It sounded so needy, so desperate. 

Shiva in all her ethereal beauty was already striding away from him into the deepest drifts of snow when he summoned Griever too. He had more than enough mana to maintain both of them - at least when he didn’t have the distraction of a battle to contend with - and he was curious to see why the lion had entreated him with such a tone as he had.

Shiva stopped and turned in place to watch him, curious at his use of magic, perhaps. Her expression remained that same serene, unreadable visage. 

Griever appeared out of the clouds again, in the same almost humanoid form that he’d been in earlier that same day, white mane wild in the breeze that stirred across the snowfields. Cloud was glad to see that the wound on his arm seemed to have vanished completely as well - he had no idea how he’d be able to heal the lion if it hadn’t been.

Griever strode purposefully towards Shiva’s form, standing far taller than her by far - at least twice her height if not more. His powerful form dwarfed the ice goddess by comparison. For a moment, Cloud’s heart stuttered, worried that the two would harm each other perhaps in a struggle that he didn’t fully understand.

He needn’t have worried. Griever _bowed_. Griever got down onto one knee and genuflected before Shiva without making a single sound, head so low it almost touched the snow in reverence for the ice goddess.

Though the expressions of the summons were often hard to read, Shiva’s always seemed entirely calm, more calm than any of the other creatures that he might summon in fact - until this moment in time, Cloud had never seen her expression change. Cloud watched the surprise appear on her beautiful face, and then perhaps some sort of recognition. 

She reached out a hand to touch the bowed head of the Lion creature, stroking it’s wild mane carefully.

He felt like an interloper, but he couldn’t look away at first. Griever seemed to be the summon that did everything that he thought a summon _couldn’t_ , and that just made the creature all the more intriguing overall. He’d never expected two summons to interact like that, to even be able to touch each other. But then he’d never expected Griever to be able to touch him either. To be able to think freely, to assess situations and plan his attacks like earlier that day when it had driven the blue dragon away from the convoy in order not to risk damaging the vehicles, if that was indeed what he was doing.

Shiva knelt down in the snow before Griever, stroking his mane, touching his face with gentle hands. When she opened her mouth to speak to the lion, it sounded like wind howling across snow covered plains in the deepest chill of winter to his ears and like ice creaking and cracking. 

Still, Griever seemed to understand it, somehow, listening raptly and nodding along with what she said.

Cloud shivered at it all, burying himself further into his scarf and warmer clothes to try and ward off the cold a little longer, and to give them as much privacy as he could. It was almost as though they knew each other, and well for that matter. It was almost as though Griever worshipped Shiva. 

It would explain at least, a little of why that loneliness Griever proffered felt so cold, he thought. 

*******

He should have known better. He’d been distracted. 

Cloud had heard rumours of bandits in the area when he’d checked in at Cosmo Canyon on the way out to Rocket Town. Assholes trying to take advantage of those who made the pilgrimage to the area in order to study. They likely wouldn’t be the last either. Nanaki had been searching for them among the rocks but it seemed they scurried away at his approach rather than face his anger. 

He’d slowed down to listen to a message from Tifa on the new earpiece he’d acquired, something about a new potential job from someone that he could pick up from the Costa Del Sol on his return journey. Slowing down made it easier to hear as the roar of his engine pared back enough to make her voice audible. He’d unwittingly made himself an easier target in the same breath. 

One of the bandits got a lucky shot, the bullet ripping through Cloud’s shoulder with a white hot pain. The force of it was enough to throw off his balance - he hit the brakes, hit a deliberately placed oil patch and the bike tumbled down on its side.

He found himself rolling in the red dirt of the canyon floor and managed to get his feet under him to come up unsteadily. The bike slid to a halt a good twenty feet beyond him - a meagre distance really, but then the report of gunfire echoed around the canyon again. 

Covering fire, cutting him off from his bike. Cutting him off from his weapon. They knew him well enough to know how to stop him and how to isolate him from his weapon, then. 

Cloud cursed under his breath, diving for a small opening in the cliff wall to gain some cover and protect himself from the rain of bullets, pressing himself against the rockface with a wince. His shoulder felt as though it were on fire, and he could feel the blood running down his arm in snaking rivulets. The blood would draw monsters and make the situation even more annoying if he didn’t do something quickly.

The way the sound echoed on the red rock walls made it hard to track all of them, even as stone chips and dust rained down from the canyon wall where their bullets rained in an effort to keep him pinned.

He heard a growl and felt that same hand on his shoulder. Only a scant few days before, he’d shifted his materia around, moving Griever’s summon materia into his armlet, temporarily when clearing out a few monsters that he could subject to added effect. It was pure luck that he had Griever with him.

For a moment, he debated whether it would be too much to set the summon loose on them. They were close to Cosmo Canyon after all, and someone would surely see the light and might come running. Then again, they were far enough away that Griever would be done long before anyone innocent could get near them, and one thing was for certain with Griever - there would be nothing left in his wake. 

He swore he felt the hand squeeze his shoulder, the growl getting louder as the firing continued. Angry, protective. He got the feeling that Griever didn’t like the fact he’d been hurt. 

“Okay, okay,” he whispered and reached for the materia. 

Hidden as he was, he did not see Griever’s arrival, nor his attack. The light of it seared along the canyon walls, casting deep, long shadows behind every rock, every ridge. The force from it howled along the canyon, picking up dust and debris and dragging it along in its rush. Cloud faded back as much as he could into the crack in the canyon wall, turning his back to it to the dust, closing his eyes and covering his mouth and nose to protect himself. 

When the wind died down and silence reigned again, Cloud dragged himself out of his hiding place. 

Griever in his four legged form was waiting silently in the canyon, just a few steps from Cloud’s hiding place as though nothing had happened. The Lion faded back half a step when his eyes strafed Cloud’s figure, and Cloud got the sense that Griever was surprised by his appearance. Cloud looked down at the wound in his shoulder and hissed. Far from the worst he’d had, but still painful, and the blood had soaked through his sweater, making the dark fabric even darker. Of course, the bullet had exited out of his front, so the wound was far larger and more grave than the one on his back would be. Griever approached him cautiously, bumping Cloud’s good shoulder gently, like a fond cat. 

“I’m good,” Cloud said, running his hand through the soft fur of the lion’s mane, unable to resist anymore. It seemed to soothe the summon creature a little though. “Through and through. Just need to heal up.”

Griever watched him pull a potion out of his belt, pouring it over the wound, making sure to pull his sweater out of the way before he cast a more substantial spell. Safer to clean the wound with a potion to sterilise it after the dust. 

Pouring it on his back was a little more awkward, unfortunately, but he made do.

He chose regen for the spell he cast if only because it would lessen the chance of shock, letting the wound close up as close to naturally as possible - even if it was at a vastly accelerated rate. 

Cloud sighed in relief as soon as he felt the magic trickle through his veins, the pain already seeping away little by little. 

“I should have paid attention,” he said, more to himself than the lion really, shaking his head. 

Griever huffed and seemingly rolled his eyes.

Cloud was bemused by the reaction, it seemed far more human than it did feline, although he was fairly certain cats would roll their eyes readily if they could. “You disagree?”

The lion huffed again, laying down just as he had months before in the heat of the Corel desert, though this time it was facing him. The lion’s eyes were the silver-blue of a winter sky, that odd, chilling blue that promised a bitterly cold day or night to come. A cold, unspeakable patience filled them, ageless and beautiful.

“Why can you touch me?” Cloud asked, even though he wasn’t sure he’d ever get an answer. 

Cloud swore the summon chuckled. It certainly sounded like a chuckle, anyway

He pulled the glove off his uninjured hand with his teeth, and reached out to the lion carefully. It lowered it’s head slowly, letting him stroke the flat of its nose. The fur was warmer, and somehow softer than he’d expected, the purple-black pelt thick. It slid through his fingers like water. The lion closed its eyes and gave a slow, rumbling purr that coaxed Cloud into taking a step closer to the lion. 

Then, Griever reached a paw out to him carefully, nudging him closer still with the utmost care. The only time Griever had made him unsteady on his feet was that first time when he’d bumped against Cloud in the desert - it felt like he’d underestimated his strength and size that one time, and since then had been endlessly cautious not to cause even the most insignificant harm.

“Should I sit? Is that what you want?” Cloud frowned. Well, it’d be okay, he supposed. Visitors travelling through Cosmo canyon would be rare, and vehicles rarer still. Besides, the wound was still regenerating, the flesh still knitting itself together. Resting would make it easier. If anyone came from Cosmo Canyon, he was sure that Griever would notice them before he did.

Cloud sank to his knees slowly, before the lion, just to let himself breathe for a moment.

To his surprise, Griever shuffled forward, close enough for Cloud to actually lean on him, between his forepaws, against the huge swell of the lion’s white mane and the solid muscle of his chest. 

He should have been feeling fear. The lion was huge and powerful, far taller than any real lion could ever be - at least half cloud’s height again at his shoulder - but Griever had never shown the least bit of malice in the weeks and months that he’d carried the materia. Even if he had only permitted Cloud to summon him a total of five times so far.

Griever _purred_. Almost too deep for him to hear, but Cloud could feel the vibrations of it where he was leaning against the lion. It felt good. Soothing, somehow, and in other circumstances, he’d have been tempted to close his eyes and even get some rest.

Other circumstances, other locations. Places where he wasn’t worried that there might be another ambush somehow.

Usually cats hated him, they knew he wasn’t normal - but then again Griever wasn’t really a cat, or normal, and it felt so good to hear that bone deep purr resonating in his own body as well.

He knew he’d have to check the damage on his bike, get back on the road, get back to work… but just this once, he’d give himself five minutes to breathe. 

*******

Every breath felt hot, wet and ragged in his throat. Every one of his senses, augmented by Hojo’s experiments or not, seemed dulled to the point of uselessness. For a moment, a horrible thought came to him. Geostigma. Some weird flashback, some strange flare up somehow, but that was gone. Cloud even lifted his arm - which felt like a lead weight - to reassure himself the black marks were still gone from his skin. 

Thankfully they were. Beneath the protective pink Ribbon tied around his bicep, his skin was just as pale and blemish free as it had been in the old Sector Five church after Aerith’s gift.

If the Ribbon was there, that let out poison as a potential for feeling like hell as well. If it wasn’t Geostigma, and it wasn’t poison… it couldn’t be another illness, could it? It felt just like when he’d been ill as a child, the same wooliness in his head, the same hot aching in his joints. The same wrongness with every ragged breath he took. He wasn’t supposed to get sick, though.

Cloud lifted himself on one elbow carefully. His vision swam for a moment as he looked around the unfamiliar room and froze. Out of the corner of his eye, on his left, he caught sight of a pair of feet on the next bed. 

The last thing he remembered, he’d been heading for Costa Del Sol. A bright, sunny day along the coast, but something had been wrong. He’d been feeling somehow off all morning and he’d finally pulled over. He’d just wanted to get off the bike for a second, take a drink of water, maybe, but he couldn’t remember actually doing any of it. He certainly couldn’t remember getting the bike to an inn, taking off most of his gear and getting into bed.

Especially not when there was a stranger lying on the next bed,

He knew it was an inn of course, the layout of the room was fairly familiar, even if he couldn’t place the particular inn it was. Three beds crammed into a room too small for them really, barely enough room to pace around them. The cries of seagulls outside the window put him somewhere near Costa Del Sol still, at least, but couldn’t explain why there was someone else in the room with him. Especially since they were unfamiliar - he didn’t recognise the boots as anything Cid, or Vincent would wear, and they were too small to belong to Barret. Too large to be Tifa or Yuffie too.

Cloud shifted his gaze away from what little he could see of the stranger’s figure, looking for his swords instead. He spotted them at the far end of the room, close to the door, the full assembly leaning nonchalantly against the wall. As far away from Cloud as it was possible to be in the room.

He just had to get to his sword, then he’d be safe. He’d get control of the situation, find the rest of his gear and his bike and everything would be _fine._

Cloud lifted the covers gingerly, and the rush of cooler air over his skin made him shudder as though it had been a blast of air from the ice fields themselves. It didn’t seem _that_ cold in the room, but the feel of it prickled his skin and made him shudder as though it had been.

Then a soft, deep voice came from his left. “You should stay in bed.”

Cloud froze all over again, covers gripped in one hand tightly.

He debated rushing for his sword, but with the way his head was still spinning he wasn’t sure he’d even make it a couple of steps. Thankfully though, as far as he could see when he turned his head to get a better look, the stranger was unarmed. 

“Who are you?”

The stranger stretched languidly and sat up. 

He was wearing black leather pants with a zipper replacing the outside leg seams. Short buckles fastened over those same zippers across the outside of each thigh, and above it all he sported a fairly form fitted t-shirt, revealing a muscular physique with the broad shoulders and muscular arms of a swordsman. His black gloves - also leather - covered a good portion of his wrists. There was a thick silver chain that circled his neck, dangling a pendant in a matching metal onto his chest. Tossed haphazardly onto the end of the bed were a tangle of brown and black leather belts, and an odd short sleeved leather jacket.

The man himself was a brunet in his twenties perhaps, with thick, choppy, chocolate brown hair that brushed his shoulders, and a scar cut starkly through the pale skin of his forehead, the cut carving down until it bit into his cheek. He was handsome, maybe even pretty, despite the scar. Cloud was right however, in that the man was a complete and utter stranger.

“Who are you?” Cloud asked cautiously.

“You don’t recognise me?” the stranger asked, raising one eyebrow quizzically. His mouth quirked up in a half smile, standing from the bed he’d been resting on and stepping closer, leaning over Cloud just a little. Not quite enough for Cloud to feel threatened, but too much to let him feel entirely at ease at the same time. It was a carefully measured response, deliberate in its action, which made it all the more alarming. Cloud felt like he was being read, and tested. 

The stranger’s eyes were not quite SOLDIER blue, but blue nonetheless, with slit pupils like a cat. 

Slit pupils like Sephiroth. 

Like Griever. 

“I don’t know you,” Cloud said firmly. His voice sounded odd in his throat, coming out wrong. He lifted a hand to cover his mouth as he coughed, and his lungs ached with it. The next few breaths rattled in his lungs, tasting hot in his mouth. 

The stranger almost seemed amused despite the lack of recognition, straightening again and backing off just a little. “Never mind. You’re sick, you need to rest.”

“I don’t get sick,” Cloud bit back sharply. 

“Then how do you explain this?” the stranger gestured at him. “You have a fever. You are coughing. You are sick.”

He tried to ignore the idea of being _sick_. Cloud settled hesitantly back against the pillows, casting another cautious glance around. His armlet and materia were close, standing on the small shelf that acted like a bedside table for the inn room. At least, if pressed he could grab it and cast. 

The stranger reached into a shopping bag beside the bed and pulled out a bottle of water, offering it to him with his gloved fingers. It was still sealed, as far as he could tell. Of course, that didn’t mean it was safe, he wasn’t fool enough to think that. There were ways to still poison it without breaking the seal. “At least drink something.”

Most of him screamed for him to ignore the bottle, to ignore the gesture, but his throat was so sore, so dry that he took it carefully, twisting it to examine it more closely. No, it didn’t look like it had been tampered with, no pin holes, the cap was not moved from its original position.

“I’m not trying to poison you,” the stranger rolled his eyes. 

“Just to kidnap me?” Cloud suggested dryly, twisting the cap free of the bottle. He sniffed it cautiously before he finally took a drink. It was just a little cooler than the room, and despite the ache in his throat, Cloud downed half of it at the first taste. 

“You’re not kidnapped,” the stranger said as he took a moment to catch his breath. “You’re free to leave as soon as you want to. Or are able to.”

“Then why are you in my way?”

The stranger huffed, “Because you already fainted on me once, and I’m not about to let it happen again.”

“...I fainted?” Cloud echoed dully. “Forget that, _who_ are you?”

“You know my name. You’ve called for me before.”

“I _don’t_ know you.”

The stranger made an irritated sound in the back of his throat and straightened, crossing the room to pick up Cloud’s fusion sword in one hand as though it were nothing. He bought it to the bedside, holding it up by the handle, the long blade hanging down. Cloud wasn’t sure what it was meant to demonstrate at first, then he noticed something odd

One of the materia in the base band of the fusion sword was a dull, red-black. It had been a deep blood red before. It had only glowed with power five times since he’d put that materia into that slot.

“You know my name,” Griever said firmly, eyes narrowed angrily on Cloud. 

“...I do,” Cloud agreed at last, in a small, quiet voice. “And I think I’m hallucinating.”

“Hallucinations often carry your swords around?” Griver asked archly as he set the sword down again, leaning it with utmost care against the wall. 

_‘Not mine, but their own,’_ Cloud thought dryly. He wisely stayed silent.

“Anyway, you fainted on the bike. I picked you up and found the nearest inn,” Griever waved a gloved hand dismissively. “Drink. You’re sick.”

“I’m not supposed to get sick,” Cloud took another sip from the bottle he was holding. If he was hallucinating, then at least the hallucination offered more useful things like bottles of water and not just commentary and sword carrying. 

“I’ve heard that before,” Griever rolled his eyes, leaning back against the wall beside the sword and folding his arms over his chest. He turned his head to gaze at the sword, looking it up and down, his eyes flicking over the blade deftly. There was something in his expression that further convinced Cloud that he was a swordsman, an appreciation for the finely crafted blade perhaps. It was hard to put a name to the sensation and expression. If the fusion sword was in one piece here, though, it meant that Griever had to have assembled it. The process wasn’t complex, but took a little practice for everything to lock together as one and stay that way. Could he observe that somehow, as a materia? Finally Griever turned his attention back to Cloud. “Now you’re awake, how do you feel?”

Cloud wasn’t sure how much he should say. “I... guess I can’t pretend I’m fine, now.”

“Hardly,” Griever scoffed.

“Why do you want to know?”

“So I can get you the right medicine.”

Cloud couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “Really?”

Griever let out a long low growl. “You literally have my life in your hands,” he gestured at the sword and the dull red-black materia again. “I am not here to hurt you, I’m _trying_ to help you.”

Griever’s life in his hands? It seemed too ridiculous to believe. Cloud wanted to ask more, wanted to _know_ more, but he didn’t feel that he had the right to ask. He frowned, averting his gaze from the man who claimed to be his summon creature. “My throat is sore and I ache all over.”

“Thank you,” Griever replied with the tone of someone who was running low on patience. “I’ll go find you something hot to drink to help with that.”

“Coffee,” Cloud said firmly. 

“Tea,” Griever countered, “would probably help more, but whatever.”

“Coffee,” Cloud said, “means I’ll at least drink it. White, no sugar.”

Griever straightened, slipping past Cloud’s bed to gather his belts, fastening them into place one by one. It was an odd set up, a weird tangle of belts that bore silver studs and buckles in a harness arrangement. Oddly it reminded him somewhat of Vincent, and he wasn’t sure he could put his finger on why. “By the way, your communication device kept making noise.”

“Communication device,” Cloud echoed, his brow furrowed. “You mean my phone?”

“Is that what it’s called?” Griever shrugged into his jacket. He seemed genuinely curious, not stringing Cloud along at all. “Interesting. I’ll be back shortly.”

With that, Griever headed for the door.

Cloud stared at the closed door for a moment and wondered when he’d wake up from the weird dream. Since he’d first gained the materia for the lion creature, he’d often considered how Griever wasn’t like other summons but this seemed ridiculous. The idea that a summon creature could leave their materia and walk around in human form, interact with the world and people in it seemed even more far fetched, and yet, Griever had definitely touched things, carried things, and had just walked out of the room.

He also hated to admit it, but the more he thought on it, the more he thought Griever was right. He certainly _felt_ sick. Just like when he’d been a little kid. 

For the moment, he ignored such thoughts and checked his messages. A couple of naturally worried messages from Tifa when he hadn’t checked in with her on the ferry to Junon as he usually would, and a handful of missed calls. Cloud called her to reassure her that he’d just missed the boat for the day, but was feeling a little tired and was going to rest while he was in the resort town.

Thankfully, whatever was making him feel like hell and made his throat scratchy had not reached his sinuses and he sounded mostly normal, if a little quiet and even more hesitant to talk than usual.

He wasn’t fool enough to think that Tifa believed his excuse entirely, but at least she didn’t seem quite as worried when he ended the call. He’d brought himself time at least to rest and recover. If it had taken him out like this, he dreaded to think what it might do to Denzel and Marlene.

Perhaps, he thought, Tifawas just encouraged enough to believe him by the idea of him actually wanting to rest for once. That was admittedly rare. 

Cloud set the phone back on the bedside table and sank further down against the pillows, closing his eyes. The worst part of it was that all of his senses just felt so… so skewed. Everything felt dulled and twisted away from what it normally felt like and that alone made him feel dizzy, without whatever the bug had done to him.

At least if he closed his eyes, he could ignore most of it and just focus on breathing. Hot, wet breaths.

He must have dozed off at some point, because he jerked awake when the door opened. He half sat up to grab for his sword, but paused when he recognised the figure that apparently belonged to Griever coming back through the door.

Without a word, Griever came to the bedside, sitting on the edge of the bed. Cloud felt the weight of him on the covers, even though he’d half been convinced he wouldn’t be able to. That it was somehow still a hallucination and that no one else would know that Griever was there. 

He offered Cloud a takeout cup of coffee with gloved fingers first, pulling the cup out of the cardboard carry. “Coffee, since you won’t drink tea.”

Cloud took it carefully, clinging to it for warmth. The heat against his hands made him realise suddenly how very cold he was, how much he needed the warmth. When Griever had sat down he’d disturbed the covers a little and Cloud was trying not to shiver.

Griever held up a second, more substantial cup. “Soup. Easier to swallow.”

“I’m really not supposed to get sick,” Cloud said, taking the second cup as well. He wasn’t in the least bit hungry, but the smell of the chicken soup inside the take out cup was a sensory reminder of his childhood. Of cold winter days and raindrops against the window panes. Of warm blankets and the care of his mother. 

“Things change, nothing is set in stone forever,” Griever shrugged, pulling the third and final cup from the take out case and taking a sip from it himself. So not only could he interact, and shop, he could apparently drink as well. “Just because you were immune to what was around yesterday doesn’t mean you’re immune to everything that’s around today.”

Cloud sighed, taking another of the coffee. Griever was right, at least. It did seem far easier to drink the still fairly hot drink than it had the cold one, and it soothed the ache in his throat a little. He watched as Griever pulled potential medicines out of the bag and - to his surprise - set Cloud’s own wallet on the bed beside him “You took my wallet?”

“Being a summon, I don’t really keep one around anymore,” Griever offered dryly, gesturing at himself as though he wanted to indicate the apparent lack of wallet. “I’ll go hunt monsters to make it up to you later.”

“You don’t have to.”

Griever raised an eyebrow at him, bemused again. “You sure?”

Cloud nodded, setting the soup cup down for the moment to focus on the coffee first. He was already tired and aching, and he was worried that he might drop the other if he continued to hold on to both. “Doesn’t matter. Just… surprised me.”

“That I mugged you while you were passed out?”

He sipped the coffee to hide a smile as Griever opened one of the boxes of medicine to find the pills.

Then, he paused, lifting his head to gaze at Cloud again. “What’s your name?”

“You don’t know?”

“You’re the one who summons me, not the other way around,” Griever shrugged. Well… Cloud supposed that made sense somehow. He was the one who called for Griever, why would Griever have any reason to know his name? Perhaps despite Cloud’s first thoughts, Griever _couldn’t_ hear anything outside of the Materia besides the one who wielded it? The lion had certainly known when he’d needed assistance on more than one occasion. A couple of times, he’d even seemed protective, so there had to be _some_ awareness there.

“Cloud Strife,” Cloud offered, when he realised he’d probably already been silent for too long in answering that question.

An odd smile spread across Griever’s lips, and he chuckled softly. 

“What’s so amusing about that?” Cloud asked.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Cloud eyed Griever suspiciously, holding his hand out for the pills Griever offered. He was already drinking the things Griever bought, so might as well go the whole hog at this rate and take the medicine too. “So… why can you do this? No other Summon acts like you.”

“I’m a little younger than most of them,” Griever shrugged. He cast a glance over his shoulder at the sword leaning against the wall, as though he were listening to something that Cloud couldn’t hear. “...Okay, a lot younger.”

“What difference does that make?”

“I remember what it was like before I was a gua… before I was a summon.”

Cloud stared at him. The idea that there was a _before_ had never occurred to him once. He glanced over at his sword too, there were only three summon materia in the blade, one of which was Griever’s himself. If there had been a before for Griever, did that mean that all of them were in the same situation? Shiva, and Neo-Bahamut’s glittering red orbs stayed silent on the matter, though. “Before?” he echoed. 

“Before,” Griever nodded in confirmation. 

“So you were human once?”

Griever frowned faintly. He seemed… not upset. Cloud wasn’t sure of the right word again - distanced, perhaps would work. Griever seemed distanced from the conversation, as though it were something that he had already moved beyond. Something that he held at arms length, so it wouldn’t matter any more. “Close to it, at least. Hard to explain.”

Cloud wondered if that meant that he’d once been an ancient perhaps, before he’d become a summon creature. And if he had, how he’d become one. The time for such questions though seemed a long way off, and Cloud wasn’t sure it would ever be wise asking. He took a moment to pop the pills into his mouth and swallow them with a mouthful of coffee to get it over with as quickly as he could. “So… Is this what you looked like _before_?”

Griever looked at his gloved hand, thoughtfully for a moment, before he touched the pendant on his chest. Now as close as Griever was, Cloud could see that it was a lion’s head caught in a roar, with a pointed cross motif beneath it. “As far as I remember, yes. Maybe vanity made me tweak a few things, but it’s hard to recall.”

“How long ago?”

Griver paused. He closed his eyes and took a slow, shuddering breath. For the first time, Cloud thought that the question he’d asked might have hurt Griever. “Time is like water, and flows away from you,” he said softly. “I don’t know how long it’s been anymore.”

Cloud stayed quiet, just watching him.

“Anyway,” Griever said after a few minutes of silence. “You should rest if you want to recover.”

Cloud suspected that meant more that Griever didn’t _want_ to talk anymore, rather than actually being concerned about him needing to rest, but he’d done much the same thing to others over the years. It didn’t seem worth fighting when he was already tired anyway. “You’ll be gone in the morning, won’t you?” 

“Even if I’m not here like this, I’m never far away,” Griever gestured at the sword leaning against the wall beside the bed again. 

“Does that mean you might come back like this?”

Griever’s mouth quirked up in one corner, faintly bemused by the words. “I believe that’s a request, not a question.”

Taking the hint, Cloud rephrased. “Please, come back like this.”

Griever smiled. “I think that will be possible.”

**Author's Note:**

> There may be more instalments to this coming in future, perhaps with a slightly more romantic bent to them. We shall see.


End file.
